Growing up I loved scary movies and my grandfather was the only family member who would take me to see anything R-rated. That is, up until something called The Beast Within after which he said he was ‘drawing the line’ and I ‘was on my own’ from then on. Something about me witnessing the forced impregnation of a young girl by a demonic alien didn’t sit well.

As an even younger child I lived on the french side of St. Maarten where my mother worked in a bar called Goldy’s. While she was working I’d whittle away my days drinking cafe au lait and shirley temples while watching horror movies on Beta Max with Steve Martin which, for the record, I barely remember. I’m realizing as I type this that I not only started early with the blood and guts but also with the excessive drinking and shameless name dropping.

So you see holloween is near and dear to me because this time of year it’s a varitable theater of blood every time I turn on the tv. Which, incidentally, is not a tv at all but a PROJECTOR where I can see all the amityville I see fit 5ft high on my livingroom wall in high definition. In fact, in a reckless display of conspicuous consumption I can SIMULTANEOUSLY record three bloodbaths at one time and thats NOT counting the tivo upstairs. So without further adieu, I have to go finish Freddie vs. Jason and start up Leprechaun II: Back 2 Tha Hood. I said I liked horror, I never said I had good taste. Snobs.

{tags st. maarten scary movies cafe au lait}

When I was 13 years old I went to a Huey Lewis and the News concert and as the heart of rock and roll was beating, I got my period for the first time. When I was finished dancing my little head off, we went to Wess’s House of Ribs where I remember yelling from the bathroom “I just don’t know where it goes!” to my best friend about the tampon she gave me.

At 14, me and the same friend would break dance on picnic tables. In public. I just want to make sure you understand. In public we, two white girls, would turn up our boomboxes and do the human helicopter in public picnic areas.

At 15, when we were not fighting, we’d choreograph and perform dance routines from the Purple Rain album for anyone who’d watch. And when we were fighting, about either who got to wear the light denim in the front-dark denim in the back jeans or whether or not its a good idea to go ahead and wear our matching flourescent high tops to school – we’d have hysterical fistfights on the cold, hard streets of Wakefield RI.

At 16, me and my new best friend decided it would be smart to steal Salvation Army collection bins from URI and then go to the mall. Just when we collected enough for gas money to Boston and Sonic Youth tickets, the local vegan-straight-edge-hypocrite-punk stole them from us so he could buy more abolish apartheid patches and hair bleach and feel really great about himself.

At 22, I moved to San Francisco to live in the Mission where I died my hair every color in the rainbow and developed an unbridled hunger for staying out all night and running wild. This was accompanied by copious amounts of irrational behavior, rebellion, and lots more dancing.

Now at 32 – I sit here hormonally demented, cursing Huey Lewis because it’s his fault I have cramps, with my coolness fading so fast I can practically see it moonwalking right out the front door wearing my red parachute pants that I bought at Chess King. And dancing badly. Very very badly.

{tags prince helicopter wakefield}